Why are there sad people sending around emails about keeping the kitchen clean

Question

My GF works in an office and every so often one of her colleagues will find it neccessary to email the whole office with a patronising 'reminder' to make sure the fridge is clean and the cutlery washed up. The emails are usually written in a style of moaning or complaining.

I run a successful retail store and if I found any of my employee's wasting there time writing such pointless rubbish I would want to know why they haven't got anything better to do.

If my staffroom gets messy, we all clear it up equally from time to time, we all know we're as bad as each other.

Does any one else get sick of these 'moral high ground' employees who think it's there job to reprimand people over such trivia?

Answer 1

You have a staffroom, you don't know how envious I am.  

In our last building, we had a kitchenette shared between several different teams in an open office & every smoker who passed through on their way back to their floor.  I sympathise with the phantom emailer but it is essentially a time wasting exercise because no one ever believes it applies to them & they disregard it any way.    

What really cured the slobs of their slovenly habits & milk thieving was when we moved buildings we had no kitchen facility, we have a bar slung up in a corner with a kettle so everyone can see you making a mess & stealing other people's milk.  

No, I don't think that person should be reprimanded, it takes a couple of seconds to knock out an email, considerably less time then cleaning the kitchen.  Management does need to take that person in hand but there may be something other then the state of the kitchen bothering this person which needs to be addressed.  You also need to bear in mind your opinion of what happens in your girlfriend's office is filtered by her and her experiences and the information she supplies you with, the phantom emailers experiences in the office may be completely different.  

Answer 2

If you don't think it is important to keep the kitchen tidy and germ/mold free, I don't think I would want to work for you or patronize your store. It is only "pointless" to request help in keeping the kitchen clean if everyone that works there is a slob. What do your bathrooms look like?  

Answer 3

if you don't want opinions, why ask the question?  personally you're sitting down and writing a complaining question here is the same as an employee sitting down and sending an email conplaining about dirty dishes.  i don't care if you wallow in the dirty dishes, just don't ask for opinions and then get mad when you get them.  

Answer 4

I work in an office environment and unfortunately, more often than not people have a lot of spare time on their hands to write these kind of emails -  I think it breaks up their day.

Our boss removed everything from our kitchen including mug, cutlery, kettle, toaster - everything. That way there wasn't any washing up. People had to bring in their own stuff and take it home. If anything was left at the end of the day the cleaner was instructed to throw it away

Answer 5

Really - bet I know who cleans out the fridge at your girlfriends office!

And I also bet that everyone else including your whinging GF sits on their backsides watching while she cleans up after them.

Personally as an employer who should be worried about the health and safety of my employees I'd be grateful the risk was being minimised rather than thinking that someone was wasting time. I'd be thanking this member of staff for taking the initiative....and pulling up the others for not cleaning up after themselves.

I might think it was a waste of time if she did it daily.

Answer 6

Unfortunately, where I work we have to do the same thing periodically.

The majority of people do their bit and clean up after them, but you get one or two who simply can't be bothered or refuse to leave the place as they'd like to find it.

Yes, those emails are annoying, but if we want to keep the facilities, they are necessary.  Health & Safety in the workplace is a massively important issue and grotty kitchens, dirty fridges etc., pose as much of a potential hazard to employees as electrical cables across the floor!